Phil Gregory

Statehouse Reporter

Phil Gregory

Phil has been the Statehouse Reporter in Trenton for both WBGO and WHYY in Philadelphia since 2009.

He’s a long-time reporter in the tri-state area. For 10 years he worked at Bloomberg Radio in New York City where he anchored coverage of several major events including the 9/11 attacks and the 2003 blackout. He also covered business and market news as a reporter from the New York Stock Exchange.

Phil is a native of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania and started his broadcast career at WAEB in Allentown, PA where he advanced to become News Director. He was an award-winning reporter and anchor at radio stations WPTR, WFLY and WROW in Albany, NY and at WOBM in Toms River, NJ. Phil is a past President of the Empire State Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and has been a broadcast instructor at the New School of Contemporary Radio in Albany and at Monmouth University.

Outside of work he enjoys visiting historical, nature and entertainment sites.

A 2016 law that raised the state tax gas also provides for tax breaks taking effect January 1st.

Senator Steve Oroho says for residents 62 and older, the amount of pensions and other retirement income excluded from the state income tax goes up to $45,000 for individuals and $60,000 for those who file joint returns.

"I actually do think It'll keep more people here in the state. Our retirees do want to stay around by their families."

The leader of the New Jersey Senate says lawmakers will hold a hearing to examine insurance products being offering by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Senate President Steve Sweeney says he wants to make sure insurance companies aren’t making enormous profits at the expense of quality health care for consumers.

“Horizon dominates the market right now. They have more than 50% of the market and they’re coming out with another product to deal with Medicare. And we want to know the impacts of these products for consumers and hospitals.”

New Jersey’s minimum wage goes up to $8.40 an hour at the start of the new year. A constitutional amendment voters approved in 2013 ties the base pay to inflation. Larger increases could be on the way.

Analilia Mejia, the director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, says the 16 cent an hour increase that takes effect January 1st is not enough in a such a high-cost state.

“Think about, how much people have to pay for rent and transportation and food and child care. You’re finding yourself in a situation where it’s impossible to make ends meet.”

Governor-elect Phil Murphy has selected the EPA’s regional administrator to lead New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection.

If she’s confirmed as DEP Commissioner, Catherine McCabe says one of her priorities will be focusing on climate change.

“It’s over time for us to start taking some action on that and to building up the shore resiliency. There have been a lot of efforts. The federal government has been part of that as well as the state, but we haven’t done enough and we haven’t done it fast enough.”

After a five-hour hearing on the measure, legislation that could impose a surcharge on electric customers to keep three nuclear plants open in South Jersey has been advanced by a joint Senate and Assembly committee.

Public Service Enterprise Group says the nuclear plants could become unprofitable in two years and be shut down.

Ratepayer advocate Stefanie Brand worries the legislation could cost ratepayers over $300 million a year. She says there’s no evidence to demonstrate subsidies are needed.

New Jersey Governor-elect Phil Murphy continues his theme of diversity in selecting members of his cabinet, nominating a Cuban-American Assemblywoman to be the next Commissioner of the Department of Banking and Insurance.

Assemblywoman Marlene Caride says she'll work to ensure New Jersey residents are treated fairly by lending institutions and insurance companies.

Local government officials in New Jersey are urging Governor-elect Phil Murphy to support permanently extending the 2% cap on police and firefighters salary increases when contract disputes go to binding arbitration.

The cap is set to expire at the end of the year and Democratic legislative leaders are waiting to hear whether Murphy supports it before taking action to extend it.

Murphy is awaiting a final report from a commission studying the cap before making his decision.

Know somebody who's sick? It could be the flu that's starting to show up in New Jersey.

Dr. Bradley Pulver is the director of emergency services at Ocean Medical Center in Brick Township.

“We’re starting to see some cases over the last couple of weeks, but there is concern that it is going to be a worse than usual flu season. It’s very widespread in many of the southern states and the expectation is it’s going to hit here very hard over the next few weeks.”

New Jersey Governor-elect Phil Murphy has selected a member of the Assembly to be the next state Treasurer.

Murphy says Assemblywoman Elizabeth Muoio is the right person to help him with his first order of business when he takes office in January, preparing a balanced budget and growing the economy with policies that support the middle class.

Murphy wants New Jersey to return to being the state it was years ago.

A measure advancing in the New Jersey legislature is intended to prevent fast spreading fires like the one that swept through an apartment complex in Edgewater three years ago, displacing more than 500 residents.

The legislation would limit the height of multi-unit residences constructed with lightweight wood frames.

New Jersey’s Pension and Health Benefit Study Commission has issued its final report on reforms it says are needed to prevent public employee benefits costs from overtaking other budget priorities.

Commission member Tom Healey says despite unprecedented levels of funding and the dedication of the state lottery to the pension plans, the state’s estimated unfunded liability is now $90 billion, $10 billion more than in 2014.

A New Jersey lawmaker has introduced legislation that would eliminate the $10,000 limit on the amount of property taxes that can be deducted on state income tax returns.

Republican Senator Joe Pennacchio says allowing the full amount of property taxes to be deducted on New Jersey tax returns would soften the blow of Congress’s plan to limit federal tax deductions. And he hopes Governor-elect Phil Murphy supports it.

“Their names are never put out there. Companies continue sometimes to cover for them, continue to provide the resources to settle the lawsuits, and the environment is not changed because the perpetrator is not punished in any way.”

A multi-agency task force has arrested 79 alleged child predators in New Jersey.

Two new things helped uncover the evidence.

For the first time, a new mobile forensics lab was deployed to assist authorities who executed search warrants at suspects’ homes.

Lt. Jon Powers is the supervisor of the cybercrime unit.

“There’s a lot of sensitive electronics, very expensive devices. Being able to keep them inside our own controlled facility makes everything that much better for us. It also expedites the discovery of the evidence that we might be looking for”